Obama and Calderon Move Goal Posts for Summit Win

Ray Walser / March 04, 2011

The March 3 working meeting between Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon and U.S. President Barack Obama loomed as a showdown over Mexico’s sputtering war against crime and increasingly prickly relations between Mexico and the U.S. The encounter, however, took a sunny turn when the two presidents agreed to focus on trade, regulation, and energy issues rather than come to dagger points over Mexico’s seemingly out-of-control crime war.

The presidents agreed on a plan to settle a long-standing dispute over a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) commitment to allow a limited number of Mexican-owned and -operated trucks—closely inspected and monitored—to drive on U.S. highways. The termination of a pilot program at the behest of the Teamsters union triggered a costly trade dispute and led to the imposition of $2.4 billion in Mexican tariffs. (more…)